


A Break in Routine

by EnchantressEmily



Category: Widdershins (Webcomic)
Genre: Broken Bones, Friendship, Gen, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:01:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23824264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnchantressEmily/pseuds/EnchantressEmily
Summary: When Ben falls and breaks his wrist, the hardest part is getting used to needing his friends' help for so many things.
Relationships: Jack O'Malley & Ben Thackerey & Heinrich Wolfe
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19





	A Break in Routine

**Author's Note:**

> This idea popped randomly into my head one night; I'm not really sure where it came from, but here it is!

Ben poured himself a cup of tea, enjoying the relative peace and quiet. The other two were both upstairs – Wolfe practicing his violin and O’Malley doing whatever it was he did when he was alone – so Ben had some time to himself. He went into the main room, thinking about which book to read and wondering idly if any malform-catching jobs would come in that day.

Without warning something invisible darted between his feet, and he pitched forward, instinctively flinging out the hand not holding the teacup to catch himself. He landed hard on that outstretched hand, and there was a sickening snap.

White-hot pain shot up his arm, almost making him pass out. When his vision cleared, he was lying on the floor with spilled tea soaking into his shirt and his left wrist radiating agony. Someone was making undignified whimpering noises, and Ben realized in a detached sort of way that it was him.

Footsteps pounded down the stairs. “Ben!” Wolfe’s voice cried. “What has happened?”

“My wrist,” Ben managed. “I think it’s broken.”

Wolfe knelt down, avoiding the puddle of tea, and gently helped Ben sit up. Ben clutched his wrist against his chest, gritting his teeth.

“We must get you to a doctor,” Wolfe said. “Broken bones are not a thing to trifle with.” He looked up as O’Malley came into the room. “Ah, Mal! Will you please bring Ben’s coat?”

O’Malley propped his shoulder against the doorframe, taking in the situation. “What fer?” he inquired. “’E can’t get into it proper like this, can ‘e?”

“I am _not_ going to walk through the streets in my shirtsleeves, broken wrist or no!” Ben spat, glaring at him. “And since one of your wretched _creatures_ was responsible for this, the least you can do is be helpful for once!” Part of him knew that it was unfair to blame O’Malley for the accident, but he was hurting and shaken, and he didn’t care.

O’Malley opened his mouth to make some retort, then glanced above Ben’s head and closed it again. He turned around and went back upstairs, returning with Ben’s blue coat. 

Wolfe helped Ben ease his good arm into the sleeve and buttoned the coat across his chest, then reached up and straightened his glasses, which had been knocked askew by his fall. “We will be back before too long,” he told O’Malley. “Unless you wish to come as well?”

O’Malley shook his head. “Nah, I’ll stay here an’ mind th’ office.”

That was an alarming prospect, but Ben didn’t have the energy to object. He let Wolfe help him to his feet and shepherd him out the door.

When they returned an hour later with Ben’s wrist splinted and his arm in a sling, O’Malley was perched on top of the bookshelf, swinging his legs. Ben noticed that he had actually picked up the pieces of the cup Ben had dropped and wiped up most of the tea.

“Hello, Mal,” Wolfe greeted him cheerfully. “Has anyone come by while we have been gone?”

“Nah,” O’Malley answered. “How bad’s it?” He jerked a thumb at Ben’s sling.

“The doctor said it isn’t a bad break,” Ben said, sinking gratefully into a chair. “But I’ll have to wear the splint for at least six weeks. The real difficulty is that it’s my dominant hand, so I can’t write. I don’t know if I’ll even be able to draw desummoning circles.”

“Do not worry, my friend,” Wolfe said, gripping his shoulder reassuringly. “We will help you, will we not, Mal?”

O’Malley shrugged and made a noise that might have been agreement.

“And now you must rest while I go and purchase the medicine that the doctor prescribed for the pain,” Wolfe added. “Mal will be here if you need anything.”

Ben closed his eyes as Wolfe went out the door. His wrist still throbbed, not as sharply as it had at first, but insistently, making it hard to think about anything else. He needed to think, though; he needed a plan for how he was going to keep his business running with only one working hand. Could he draw circles right-handed? Would the spell still work if someone else drew the circle? They hadn’t covered this at university.

“Oi, Ben.” O’Malley’s voice broke in on his brooding. “Y’want some tea?”

Ben opened his eyes again. Tea sounded very good right now, he realized; he had never gotten to drink the cup he had poured earlier. “Yes, please,” he answered.

O’Malley stood up and started toward the kitchen, then paused by Ben’s chair. “I talked t’ the buggerups,” he said abruptly. “The one that tripped ye up says they’re real sorry, an’ they never meant fer ye t’ get ‘urt. They won’t do nothin’ like that again.”

Ben stared at him in surprise. “Thank you,” he murmured after a moment. “I’m glad to know that.”

When Ben woke the next morning, he didn’t remember at first what had happened the previous day; then an incautious movement sent a stab of pain through his wrist, bringing it all back. Wincing, he reached for his glasses with his good hand and got carefully out of bed. 

Dressing took much longer than usual; he eventually managed to button his shirt and waistcoat one-handed, but he couldn’t tie his neckcloth or his shoes. Then there was the problem of his hair. He could comb it, but pulling it back in his usual ponytail was out of the question. 

Ben sighed; he didn’t want to go around with his hair loose all day, so he would have to get one of the others to help. Probably Wolfe, since his standard of personal grooming was considerably higher than O’Malley’s. 

He went downstairs and found them in the kitchen, Wolfe cooking breakfast and O’Malley – who, for a wonder, was up early – slouched in a chair, feeding a biscuit to one of the malforms under the table.

“ _Guten Morgen_ , Ben,” Wolfe said, looking up from the frying pan. “How are you feeling this morning?”

“I’m fine,” Ben lied. In fact, his wrist hurt quite a lot; even with the splint, it hadn’t been possible to get his arm through the sleeve of his shirt without jarring the broken bone. “But – well, I need some help with my hair. Would you mind?” He held out his comb and hair ribbon.

“Of course –” Wolfe began, but he was interrupted. 

“Give that ‘ere,” O’Malley said unexpectedly, grabbing the comb from Ben’s hand. “Wolfe en’t never ‘ad hair long enough t’ tie back. I have.”

He made Ben sit down and combed his hair roughly back, tying it at the nape of his neck with the ribbon. The result wasn’t as smooth as it would have been if Ben had done it himself, but when he shook his head experimentally it felt secure.

“Thank you,” he told O’Malley, getting up. “Er… I don’t suppose you’d be willing to do this until my wrist is healed?”

O’Malley shrugged. “Yeah, alright. S’no skin off me nose.”

Wolfe moved the frying pan to the back of the stove and came over to join them. “May I?” he asked, indicating the neckcloth draped loosely around Ben’s collar. Ben nodded, and Wolfe swiftly knotted the cloth and arranged the ends, then knelt to tie Ben’s trailing shoestrings. “There,” he said with a smile, rising. “Between us we shall make you fit to go about in public. Would you care for some eggs?” 

This became a routine over the next several days, as did Ben’s efforts to teach his colleagues to draw desummoning circles. There was no telling when their next job would appear, and he intended to be prepared when it did. 

O’Malley, after one attempt that resulted in a very wobbly outline of indeterminate shape, refused to participate in the lessons. “’M not a bloody wizard,” he grumbled. “Not like I’m ever goin’ t’ need t’ draw them things again, anyways.”

Wolfe, with his artist’s eye, did rather better; before long he could draw several of the most common circles from memory, his only flaw being a tendency to accidentally smudge the chalk lines by kneeling on them. Ben had a half-formed idea of testing the efficacy of a circle drawn by someone else by desummoning one of O’Malley’s crowd of malforms – one that wanted to be desummoned, naturally. However, before he had worked up the nerve to suggest this to O’Malley, they were called out on a real job. 

It was at a location they hadn’t dealt with before: a furniture maker’s shop a few streets away. The owner, a sturdy grey-haired woman, met them at the door. “You the wizard?” she asked, eyeing Ben’s sling dubiously. “What happened to you?”

“I fell and injured my wrist,” Ben replied stiffly. “But I can assure you that it won’t impede my ability to do my job. Can you please tell us more about the bug – er, the malform?”

The woman shrugged and led them into the front room of the shop, which was full of chairs, tables, and sofas of all shapes and sizes. “My newest assistant has some wizard training, and she got the idea of imbuing an armchair with Comfort. Silly girl lost control of the spirit, and now it’s making a mess of my workroom.”

Ben grimaced. Half-trained amateurs with big ideas caused more trouble than any other type of customer.

A small group of people, presumably the woman’s assistants, were clustered nervously outside a set of double doors at the back of the room. “Still in there?” the woman asked them, nodding at the doors.

“Far’s I know,” one of the assistants said. “There ain’t been any more noises in a while.”

“I’m so sorry, ma’am!” a girl at the back of the group burst out, sounding tearful. “I didn’t think it’d turn out this way.”

This must be the would-be wizard, Ben thought. “Let this be a lesson to you, then,” he said sternly, looking at the girl. “Summoning spirits is nothing to play around with. If you don’t know exactly what you’re doing, you can cause all sorts of trouble.”

The girl gulped and nodded.

The furniture maker opened one side of the double doors a crack and peered through. “Right, in you go,” she told Ben, Wolfe, and O’Malley, opening the door a little wider and stepping back. “Good luck.”

The workroom was bigger than the front room; shelves around the walls held wood, tools, and other things Ben didn’t recognize, and several half-finished pieces of furniture stood in the middle of the floor. One, a large, padded armchair, had been turned upside down. Pieces of wood leaned here and there at crazy angles, and there were piles of shavings strewn about.

“Do you see it, O’Malley?” Ben asked.

“Not yet,” O’Malley said, squinting around. “Mebbe under somethin’…”

He began poking into corners, while Ben turned to Wolfe. “You have the book I gave you?” Wolfe produced a small compendium of circle patterns from his coat pocket, and Ben nodded. “I’m sure there’s a circle for Comfort; look it up and start drawing the circle on that clear patch of floor over there. I’ll help O’Malley.”

“Very good,” Wolfe said, smiling. “But you will be careful, will you not? You must not hurt yourself more.”

Ben swallowed an irritated response; Wolfe was only trying to look out for him. And he did have a point, when one thought of the wild chases that had been required to catch some of their previous malforms. “I’ll be careful,” he promised.

O’Malley was still peering under shelves and behind workbenches, so Ben joined him, looking for any telltale movement. However, his attention kept wandering to where Wolfe knelt on the floor, alternately consulting the open book and making careful marks with a stick of chalk. Was he getting the proportions right? Would he remember that even the smallest gap in the circle could allow the spirit to escape?

O’Malley gave a sudden bark of laughter, and Ben’s eyes snapped back to him. “What is it?” he asked.

“This’s Comfort, right?” O’Malley waved at the leaning boards and heaps of wood shavings. “All that in’t jus’ messin’ things up. It’s makin’ nests. Forts, like little kids do. Places t’ hide in an’ be cozy.” He approached the overturned armchair and crouched to look underneath. “Aye, there ye are. C’mon out now, alright? We’re goin’ t’ send ye home.”

Ben noticed, not for the first time, how O’Malley’s voice softened when he spoke to the malforms. He might not care much for people – aside from Wolfe, of course – but there was no question that he was fond of these odd little creatures that only he could see.

The Comfort malform, it seemed, wasn’t inclined to leave its lair. After several minutes of unsuccessful coaxing O’Malley reached in to pull it out by force, then yelped and jerked his hand back.

“Did it bite you?” Ben asked in alarm.

“Nah, smacked me wi’ somethin’,” O’Malley said, glowering at the chair. “Right, ye little – oi! There ‘e goes! Grab ‘im!”

Ben stared wildly around, trying to follow O’Malley’s gestures. “Where?”

“There! No – up there! On th’ shelf!”

A length of fabric flew past Ben’s head, making it clear which shelf O’Malley meant. The malform had taken refuge amidst the supplies for upholstering furniture, which were stored just above Ben’s reach.

The next few minutes reminded Ben irresistibly of a pillow fight; he and O’Malley dodged back and forth, trying to get closer to the shelf, while the malform flung things at them. At least most of the objects on that shelf were soft, Ben thought, and therefore unlikely to cause harm.

Just as this crossed his mind, a large cushion caught him squarely in the midsection, where his left arm rested in its sling. A jolt of agony went through his whole body. For a long minute he could only lean against a workbench, bent over his arm, gasping and blinking back tears of pain. He barely heard the scuffle across the room.

Then Wolfe was beside him, putting a supporting arm around his shoulders. “Ben, are you able to come with me now? The circle is ready, and Mal has caught the buggerup. It is time for you to work the spell, yes?”

Ben’s nerves were still jangling from that shock of pain, but he straightened his glasses and followed Wolfe over to the circle. 

O’Malley stood there with his arms wrapped around a squirming invisible body. “’E tried t’ run t’ another hidin’ place while ye were distracted,” he informed Ben. “I grabbed ‘im when ‘e jumped off th’ shelf.”

“So glad to be of service,” Ben said tartly, but without any real heat. He studied Wolfe’s circle critically; everything seemed to be in order there. He stepped inside the circle and nodded to O’Malley, who deposited the malform by Ben’s feet and stood back. 

As Ben began reciting the desummoning spell, he felt an unexpected surge of happiness. His accident had thrown his normal life and routines into confusion, but here at last was something familiar and unchanged, something he could do without help.

The malform vanished with the last words of the spell, and Ben scuffed his foot across the chalk lines to break the circle. “Well done,” he told Wolfe and O’Malley. “Now let’s collect our pay and go home.”

This took longer than anticipated – not, for once, because of negotiations over breakages, but because the girl who had created the malform cornered Ben to ask for advice about proper summoning techniques. Ben was as short with her as common politeness allowed; his wrist still hurt from the impact of the cushion, and he just wanted to get home and take some pain medicine. 

O’Malley, too, was silent and frowning on the walk back to the office; Ben guessed he had one of his headaches, probably from the crowd of excited assistants wanting to hear about the malform. Wolfe kept glancing from one of them to the other, looking concerned. 

O’Malley disappeared upstairs as soon as they arrived home, and Ben, after swallowing a dose of the drug, sank into his desk chair and propped his head on his good hand. He had a sudden urge to borrow from O’Malley’s vocabulary; “bloody buggerup” expressed his feelings about the malform they had just dealt with better than any more refined phrase could.

“Ben?” Wolfe asked worriedly. “May I bring you anything, my friend?”

“ _No!_ ” Ben snapped, then immediately felt ashamed of himself. “Er… I don’t need anything,” he amended lamely. “Shouldn’t you be checking on O’Malley?”

“I will do that in a little while,” Wolfe said. “Mal prefers to have a few moments alone at these times.” He smiled. “As do you, I think. I shall be in the kitchen.”

Once Wolfe had left the room, Ben sighed and leaned back in his chair. The knife-sharp ache in his wrist was beginning to ease, and with it his desire to bite off the head of anyone who spoke to him. He shouldn’t have snapped at Wolfe, but he was so tired of being fussed over. It hadn’t even been a week since he broke his wrist; how was he going to stand a full six weeks of having to be helped with almost everything? Wolfe was kind about it, and so was O’Malley in his way, but the loss of his independence galled Ben even more than the pain of the broken bone. Even his usual solace of cleaning the office was denied him; he wouldn’t be able to do a proper job of it with one hand, and slipshod cleaning would be more frustrating than not cleaning at all.

Something warm nudged his leg, making him jump. Cautiously reaching down with his good hand, he felt a small, round body and long ears. One of the malforms, but a fairly inoffensive one by the feel of it. 

It rubbed its head against his hand, then darted off; a moment later, a book dislodged itself from the bottom shelf of the bookcase and floated toward him.

Ben blinked as the book landed on the desk in front of him. “Er, thank you?” he said tentatively. “What…?”

The piece of chalk that Wolfe had left on the desk began to write on the dark wood surface. FOR YOU, the scrawled letters read. MAKE YOU HAPPY. 

Ben stared at the message, then back at the book. It was one of his favorites, he realized: a history of how wizards had begun imbuing objects. And yes, of course, reading was something he could still do with no trouble at all. “Thank you,” he said again, with more warmth. “I appreciate it.” 

There was no response that he could hear, but he got the feeling that the malform was pleased.

Ben extracted his handkerchief from his breast pocket – more difficult with the sling in the way – and carefully wiped away the chalked letters, then opened the book. He had read it several times before, but that didn’t make it any less fascinating. Before long he was happily absorbed, temporarily forgetting his wrist and all the accompanying petty annoyances.

Wolfe poked his head around the door, smiled to himself, and went quietly upstairs.

**Author's Note:**

> This is before Green-Eyed Monster, so Ben hasn't officially met the Purple Hippo of Happiness yet, but I imagine it was hanging around Mal for a while before that. (The Purple Hippo wasn't the one Ben tripped over, though, in case you were wondering!)
> 
> ETA: I did a couple of drawings for this fic, which you can see [here.](https://enchantress-emily.tumblr.com/post/617589438397202432/if-you-draw-art-for-your-own-fanfic-is-it-fan-art)


End file.
